Theodoros Chiotis
Poetry
the loss was
not a surprise
the celebrants were
crumbling into rice: I hid behind
the indignity
the metal
balls bobbing
in the wake
of the ship I never boarded
a memory my hand folding
into the void I so
desired do I
look better like this?
now I see how the almost-
suicides
form into an amber hanging
around my neck
all the alternate
futures burning
my body
a rock
my hands
and feet a memory
of salt.
My mother is worried
I will grow into something
she cannot understand
her fear a tide
striking the edges
of the/my body the fatal disease I never contracted
made space for another
all the alternate
futures burning
my body now an arrow
on a meteorological map
nimbostratus clouds painted in slices underneath my skin
time is no longer new.
My body is a rock collecting
heat on a summer day the other boys
move their bodies with no feeling of shame. There is no time,
only the drugs. You were promised a good life, says
the sea to the
rock as it slowly
consumes it.
